A Different Kind of Fight
by friendofkara
Summary: James Olsen had remarked that Supergirl's battles were ultimately battles of values, "your values versus your enemies.'" Battles of values can have equally high stakes, but they are fought with less obvious superpowers, facts, reason, integrity, and truth. Here are two stories showing Kara's growing skills in a different kind of fight.
1. Resolution

1 Resolution

 _In which Supergirl corrects her boss' mistake and Cat Grant is taken aback by Kara's integrity._

Cat Grant sat on her office sofa and tried to pour herself a cup of tea, but the teapot was empty. As she made sure there was nothing left, the phone rang on her assistant's desk. As she began to call "Kiera" she realized that her immanently-to-be-former assistant was not in the room.

The phone rang again. Instead of repeating her call, Cat turned to look at her balcony: two seconds later Supergirl touched down on it. As she walked into the office, Cat told her:

"I never realized how absurd you look in that ridiculous outfit. Blue, yellow and red; it's like a colour wheel threw up."

Supergirl chuckled. "Sorry to bother you Miss Grant, but James Olsen said your assistant wanted to see me in your office. And she said it was urgent."

"Oh for God's sake, are we going to keep on playing this tiresome game?"

"Excuse me, Miss Grant, but could I speak to Supergirl for a moment, please?"

Cat Grant turned, slowly. Kara was at her desk putting down a banker's box. Stunned, Cat waved her in.

"Thank you for coming, Supergirl." the girl said. "I just wanted to thank you personally for saving my sister's life. She was one of the passengers on flight 237. I can't thank you enough; Alex means the world to me."

Supergirl shook Kara's outstretched hand. "You're welcome Ms. . . .?"

"Danvers, Kara Danvers. Kara to you."

"But why did you ask to meet me here?"

"I knew that Miss Grant wanted to see you, and I thought I could kill two birds with one stone."

Supergirl turned: "What can I do for you, Miss Grant?"

Cat Grant thought hard and fast: "I had very strong reasons for thinking Keira was you: for one thing, as you can see, there's some resemblance. But other things happened that made me certain she was you. I let Kiera know what I thought and why I thought it. And when she denied being you, it left me no choice: she had to admit she was Supergirl or she had to resign. And she resigned earlier this afternoon. She was kind enough to finish out the day. Keira, I apologize for doubting you, and I refuse to accept your resignation."

"Miss Grant, you remember our first conversation I hope." Supergirl's voice was glacial.

Cat nodded.

"Then you'll remember that I told you that I don't like bullies or manipulators. I said that if you ever threatened one of your employees with dismissal if they couldn't get you what you wanted from me, I would immediately cease all cooperation with CatCo. No matter that Ms. Danvers isn't me: by trying to get the person you thought was me to tell you something she hadn't already told you, I have to take that as an attempt to manipulate me. If I can't trust you to keep your side of our deal, I need to find a new media outlet.

"You can't do that!" The outburst came from the assistant, not the mogul.

"Why not, Ms. Danvers?"

"Kara, please. Because it's not a matter of her manipulating you. It's a matter of the trust that she has to have in me" Kara said. "She didn't break your deal; the circumstances forced her hand."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever been an Administrative Assistant to a CEO?"

"No." replied an obviously puzzled superhero.

"Then you might not realize that any CEO like Tim Cook at Apple, Maxwell Lord over at Lord Technologies or Miss Grant here will have certain common expectation of the AA's like me that they work with. It's mostly an unwritten part of the job description, but those expectations are inherent in what we do. Look, we keep our bosses' schedules, we manage their lives, we solve their minor problems, help solve their major crises, we have to keep entire filing cabinets worth of confidential information to ourselves and of necessity we get to know more about our bosses than anyone else in the company. In return, they need and expect us to give them our total loyalty and they've got to be able to trust us absolutely in return. Thanks to some freak circumstances, Miss Grant had what appeared to be strong reasons for thinking I was you, and when I denied that I was Supergirl in the face of that evidence, I lost Miss Grant's trust. She's got to be able to trust her confidential assistant and when I lost her trust, there was no alternative: I had to resign."

"Just how strong was that evidence?"

"Well, for one thing, there's the resemblance, but as James Olsen has pointed out, I actually look more like your cousin that I look like you. Then you did show up at interesting times, like when you saved Miss Grant from Livewire when she came here."

"Do you have any idea how loud her discharges sound to someone with my hearing? I could hear her arrival here from across the city."

"Not till you told me, how could I? But what you don't know is that Miss Grant had just finished telling me to run for the stairwells a few seconds before you turned up. Which meant, hypothetically, that I had enough time to change to Supergirl and fly in to save her life. By the way, that's something else I owe you thanks for: if anything had happened to Ms. Grant, I wouldn't have a job. And then I had the bad luck to fracture my arm and get a cold when you were away during that earthquake. And when you came back my cold was gone and what I had thought was a break turned out to be only a sprain, so my arm didn't need the sling anymore. These kinds of things but they added up."

"Your loyalty to your employer is commendable, Ms. Danvers."

"This isn't about loyalty. It's about what's right. Miss Grant didn't break your deal and it would be unfair to her to treat her as if she did."

"You're the first person to argue with me since I put on this outfit. It's refreshing. You've got some backbone and integrity there. But you're also right. Miss Grant, our deal still holds."

Cat thought it was time to end the meeting. She stood up, "We're finished here. Supergirl, I don't want to keep you from your important work. And Keira, you have important work to do too. This bottle will not refill itself."

"There's one more thing, Miss Grant," said Supergirl.

"And that is?" asked Cat as Kara turned to walk out with the bottle.

"Please stay a moment Ms. Danvers. I need your help with this."

Kara turned and asked a question with her eyes. Cat nodded, puzzled.

"Can we stipulate that the rest of this conversation is totally off the record," Supergirl asked, "You'll see why in a moment."

Executive and assistant both nodded.

"Ms. Danvers, you mentioned you have a sister," Supergirl said. "Any other family members or close friends?"

"Only my Mom and a couple of friends here. James Olsen is one of them. Why do you ask?"

"Because I need to tell Miss Grant something very important and this is the perfect opportunity. Can we pretend that you really are me for a moment?"

"But I'm not you." Now Kara was puzzled.

"Of course not. But suppose you were me, and Ms. Grant had absolute proof that you were, what would happen?"

"She'd have the scoop of the century." said Kara.

"Not exactly. First, she'd have to decide whether to publish or not to publish. And there's a downside to publishing that she may not have thought through. This is the perfect opportunity to make sure she knows all the implications of that decision."

"What do you mean, Supergirl?" Cat's voice was cold and disdainful. "I do have a smidgen of intelligence and foresight you know."

"Of course, but I want to make sure you have fully thought through the question from my perspective."

Cat thought for a second then nodded.

"Miss Grant, how do you feel knowing that you're Livewire's first target if she ever breaks out of jail?"

"Obviously, I don't like it."

"Do you remember Reactron, Miss Grant?"

"Of course."

"The first time Reactron attacked me it wasn't because of anything I did: it was because Reactron wanted to hurt Superman by hurting me."

"I see. If I publish the (hypothetical) truth that Keira here is Supergirl, I'm painting targets on the back of her mother and sister to say nothing of James and her other friends. And they've done nothing to deserve being targets. And you have done nothing that deserves me putting them at risk."

"Exactly."

"But there's more to it, Supergirl, isn't there?" asked Kara slowly.

"That's perceptive, Ms. Danvers, there is. If Miss Grant finds out who I am and publishes it, not only do targets appear on the back of my family and friends, I lose my daily life and to me, that's far more important to me than being Supergirl. Supergirl isn't really my life: Supergirl is a label, a cape, an outfit and a job description. Thanks to the amazing closeness of Kryptonian and human biologies, I can live as a human on this world. I have friends who don't see me as an alien because they know me as one of themselves. I have a job, doing useful work that I like doing. I work with mostly nice people . . . all the normal things humans do which are not all that different from what Kryptonians did, and what I expected I would do before . . . " Supergirl's eyes went distant for a moment and she shook her head. "So my life here is not all that different from what it would have been on Krypton. It's basically a happy life with my family and my friends. And most of the time I think of myself as a human immigrant to this country, not as a Kryptonian in exile. And it's partly because you guys have become so much my people that I kept on being Supergirl and started looking for trouble instead of staying hidden. If I'm outed, I lose my entire human life that I've built up over the last ten years. Oh, I guess I'll keep on helping out, but unless I build an entirely new life, I won't be able to go to movies with my best friend, or take my Mom out to dinner. I've never asked for any favors as Supergirl and I'm not going to start now, but is the scoop of outing Supergirl worth me losing my entire life just because I feel compelled to help others? Is it Miss Grant?"

Cat Grant was an experienced, cynical and committed journalist. She had heard and disbelieved every rationale for not publishing stories pushed by people who didn't want their lives damaged by the exposure of their stupidity or their actions. She could see through the self-interest that drove every other argument. But she couldn't deny the force of Supergirl's words. "No, you don't deserve to lose your normal life, so long as you keep on sticking to helping others. But if you ever develop another agenda, all bets are off."

"Agreed and thank you. So you don't publish. Great, but there's another problem you need to be aware of. Let's pretend Ms. Danvers here is still Supergirl and she's still working for you. You don't publish the fact, but I'll bet you let her know that you know it. Maybe you tease her about it?"

Kara's face froze.

"That's equally dangerous, for both Ms. Danvers and you. Oh sure, you don't do it when you're not alone together, but one day you'll slip up and tease her in the presence of a third party. Or what happens if somebody bugs your office for other reasons and hears you call Ms. Danvers Supergirl in a loaded tone of voice, or Livewire hides in your circuits and hears you tell her to go jump a tall building in a single bound in the same loaded voice?"

Cat's face froze.

"You see Miss Grant, my real life, my real name is a different kind of secret than the professional confidences I'm sure you have much practice in keeping to yourself. It's not enough that you not expose me if you ever find out who I am. It's not enough not to tell anyone; you can't give anyone, anytime, anywhere even the slightest hint that you know this secret, even when you think it's safe to do so. And of course, the same thing is true for my cousin."

"I see. Thank you for explaining things so clearly. If the situation ever arises, I give you my word that I will do my best to keep your normal life, and your cousin's, confidential."

"And you, Ms. Danvers?"

"I don't think I'll ever be in a position to learn your other name, Supergirl, but since my presence in this conversation is due to my position as Miss Grant's assistant, you can rest assured that her commitments extend to me. Not to mention that you saved my sister's life. I'd be honored to keep you secret if I ever learn it, whether or not your agenda changes."

"Thank you. And with that, I should be going. Good night ladies."

"Good-bye Supergirl." said assistant and CEO together. As Supergirl took off, Cat looked at her assistant.

"As I said Keira, you can have your job back if you would like it . . . as long as you don't tell anyone that I thought you were . . . you know."

Her employee let out a long breath. "I think that would be in both of our interests, Miss Grant. I'll be back in a second with the water for you tea."

"Before you go, thank you for speaking up there and keeping Supergirl in the CatCo stable."

"You're welcome."

"Why did you do it? CatCo was no longer your employer. I had forced your resignation. Why were you loyal?"

"Because you had just said that you refused to accept my resignation. That meant I was still your AA and a CatCo employee with the obvious responsibility to help both you and CatCo. Fortunately, the facts were on your side. All I had to do was to point them out."

"Kiera, as I have said before, you really don't lie very well. There's more to it. Even before I said that, you were being loyal to me when you had no reason to be. You only asked James to ask Supergirl to come here to see you, you didn't tell him my suspicions, even though I had forced you to quit. And when Supergirl asked why you wanted to meet her here, you didn't answer her question. You passed it over to me. Why?"

"I'm sorry Miss Grant, I was trying to avoid embarrassing you. There was no need to let James know of your suspicions, and I thought you would ask Supergirl a few questions about how being a superhero looks from the inside, now that she's been doing it a while. I never thought that you would mention your suspicions. I mean, Supergirl's presence in the same room with me had already proved they were wrong."

"Let me get this straight: I force your resignation and you don't want to embarrass me? I know you aren't Supergirl, Keira, but clearly you are not from this planet."

"No, no, Miss Grant, I'm a normal earthling. Two thousand or so years ago, it was another normal earthling who said 'That which is hateful to you, do not do to another.' I hate being embarrassed or making a fool of myself and I knew that my repeating your suspicions would be nothing more than rubbing your nose in exactly how wrong you were, and that in front of Supergirl. Right when this started I told you that I didn't want you to be embarrassed when you found out how wrong you were, and I meant that. Telling Supergirl of your suspicions in her presence would have been a mega-embarrassment for you. There was no way I could do that to you."

"Who said that line you quoted? I don't know it."

"It was a Jewish philosopher named Hillel. I came across it in a University ethics class."

Cat opened her mouth to speak, but her assistant hadn't finished.

"And if that reason is too goody-goody for you, there's another reason why I didn't want to embarrass you. Like the rest of us normal earthlings, I need to eat, and I asked myself what kind of reference would I get if I'd mega-embarrassed you in front of Supergirl? And the answer to that question was easy."

Cat Grant's smile was a sunrise.

"You seem to be developing some rudiments of common sense. I begin to have hopes for you."

"Yes, Miss Grant."

"By the way, Keira, I second Supergirl's observation: that was a very perceptive question."

"Thank you."

"Oh, and Keira? I was wrong. Now that I've seen you both in the same room, you look nothing like her. Now, go get that water. Chop chop."

"Yes, Miss Grant."


	2. Fanatic

_2\. Fanatic_

 _After recovering from the effects of red kryptonite, Supergirl gives Maxwell Lord some food for thought. And perhaps he does not find it totally indigestible._

Maxwell Lord looked up as the entrance to his cell chamber opened and Supergirl walked in.

"What brings you here?" he asked.

Supergirl's voice was quiet, unthreatening: "I read your speech to the Davos World Economic Forum last year and when I thought of something you said to me the last time we talked, the combination got me thinking. You said 'When the gods walk the earth, it's us tiny mortals who end up suffering.'"

"Yes. So?"

There was no change in Supergirl's voice: "Mr. Lord, it's not just the gods that cause weak people to suffer. Twenty-four centuries ago, it was the Greek historian Thucydides who pointed out that 'the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.' He was speaking of human beings, Mr. Lord. And those who are strong enough to they think they can play God also cause the weak to suffer, because they don't have God's advantages."

"What are you talking about? Since there is no God, how can anybody lack his supposed advantages?"

"An Irish clergyman who believed in the Judeo-Christian God once wrote that God "having the advantage of knowing both the strengths and weaknesses of men, has a facility for unostentatious organization undreamed of by our generals."

"So?"

"People who try to play God don't fully know the strengths and weaknesses of the people and the elements they try to manipulate. Donna Knox will go to her grave believing that her father was either insane or a criminal. She doesn't deserve to carry that burden, but she has to . . . because the man who manipulated her father misread what he would do. And I saw Ethan Knox as he decided that he had no alternative but to commit suicide. He died in agony, believing that his death was the best thing he could do for his daughter. He should not have been manipulated, Mr. Lord."

Then there was Bizzarro. That lady didn't deserve, or ask for an injection of my DNA. And it didn't take properly. We don't know what the long term effects will be and she'll have to be kept unconscious until we know how to treat her.

"And there's more. Cat Grant missed certain death by a few feet when you deployed red kryptonite without full knowledge of its effects. If the full facts were known, you could be facing charges of manslaughter as you were clearly an accessory before the fact." Even now Supergirl's voice was still soft, reasonable, unthreatening, but Lord could hear a deep passion underlying her words.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"I want you to think, Mr. Lord. You can do a tremendous amount of good if you just try to help people as the scientific and technological leader that you are. Your expertise will be invaluable. But when you try to play God, you're not operating on the same level of competence. You've tried three times; each attempt not only failed miserably but led to serious consequences that you did not anticipate. Since all three of your attempts were strikes, Director Henshaw has to ask himself, just how bad will the damage be to how many people when you try something like that again. If you're worried about aliens, and in the case of some of them, you have good cause to be, sign a consulting contract with the DEO and work under their direction."

"You haven't said one word about your own feelings about what I did. How do you feel about it?"

"I have two objections to you trying anything like that again. The first goes back to what you said at Davos. You answered the computer hackers' argument that their activities were socially beneficial because they strengthened your defenses by pointing out that they were making you spend money, your people's time and effort on system defenses that would be better spent on goals like ending diseases."

"Yes, and I was right. Those guys are scum, evil."

"Indeed you were right, and they are scum. But isn't it hypocritical to try to hack Supergirl? After all, that's what you were doing with each of your three attempts. Every second I fight with you, I'm wasting time that would be better spent on helping people who need my help."

"And with you around more and more people will do more and more risky things," Lord rejoined.

"If that argument was morally valid, we wouldn't have police, fire departments or emergency services people. Why are you picking on me? They save more people than I do day in and day out. And second, suppose you do take me out of play somehow, and those Kryptonians show up again. One thing's certain: they're not like me. They do see themselves as gods, and they are the kind of gods who will cause the tiny mortals to suffer. What happens to humanity if I'm not there to help? Is it in your own, or humanity's, best interest for you to stab your best defence against them in the back?"

"You make an interesting case. I'll think about it."

"Thank you. That's all I wanted."

The door opened suddenly. As Alex walked in, Supergirl left.

"You're free to go." Alex said as she opened his cell door.

"That's unexpected. Why?"

"Because my sister is a better person than you are, or I am, and she still says it's the right thing to do."

"She's an amazing alien."

"You have no idea. Look, the papers and TV stations call her the Girl of Steel, but at heart, she's still the thirteen-year-old who cried when Dad would drive past car accidents. Not just for the people involved: but because Dad wouldn't let her use her powers to help them because he wanted to keep her safe from people like you, people who only see her as a threat, a fear, a thing, instead of the person she is with the same rights as an American that you have. Through whatever freak of chance made it happen, Kryptonians are essentially people Max, and she too has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And she's also the person who found out the hard way that we DEO types can take her out easily, and it hasn't crossed her mind to do something she could easily do to make it considerably harder for us."

Maxwell Lord did not reply. When he reached the surface, he found Supergirl waiting for him.

"Would you like a lift back to National City, Mr. Lord? I can get you there faster than a car will drive you."

Lord thought for a second. "Thank you Supergirl, I'll take you up on that."

Supergirl lifted Lord in an arm carry. "OK, hold on here we go," she said as they launched.

They flew in silence, each with their own thoughts until Max Lord commented. "This isn't the direct route to National City," as they flew out over the ocean.

"That's right," Supergirl said without changing direction, "I'm flying fast enough to still beat the car, even though we are taking the scenic route. I thought you might like a breath of sea air after being underground."

The shoreline was no longer in view. "Are you going to drop me here?" Lord asked.

"No," Supergirl said. "There's something deep inside me that just won't let people get hurt if I can help it. I don't know why and I can't explain it so I can't take credit for it. It just is. I just want to help people, that's all. Please don't make it harder for me."

"But what if you're not in control?"

"Despite the effects of red kryptonite, I caught Cat Grant before she hit the ground. Doesn't that give me enough evidence to trust myself a little more than your recent failures support your trust in yourself? And don't worry Mr. Lord. The DEO has what it needs to take me out of play anytime they need to. And I am deliberately not taking the precautions I could take to make it more difficult. It's the closest I can come to a failsafe. If I think of a better one, they'll know it the same day. If you think of one, let the DEO know and we'll test it."

"I see," said Maxwell Lord as Supergirl began the long turn to the northeast. They flew the rest of the way back to Lord's office in silence.


End file.
